On August 26, 2015, at NE8T Ratchatewi, SHOPPENING, a mobile application creator has organized an event, “MOBILE FIRST, WIN FIRST,” “BUSINESS IN A POCKET, UNDERSTAND CUSTOMERS WITH MARKETING THROUGH MOBILE APPLICATION,” to educate organizations entrepreneurs in various businesses about marketing through mobile application. Aiming to support every business in adapting themselves to new competitions, the event prepares participants to the new trends of mobile usage in 2016 with information on integrated marketing through mobile application, along with business strategies and study cases from Thailand and abroad, provided by experts on marketing through mobile application.

Mr. Thanapongphan Thanyarattakul, CEO of 2 3 Perspective Co. Ltd., has pointed out the importance of mobile technology by showing the figures of internet usage from around the world, which is over 3 billion. In this number, 35 million are in Thailand which also includes a large and increasing number of smartphone users. This group of people is a main source of income for big service provider companies such as Facebook which has gained more than half of its revenue from mobile usages since 2014. Apart from Facebook, other trends that support the growth of mobile usage are mobile advertisement and mobile payment. According to the statistics of internet usage, over 80% of its use is for mobile applications and the other 20% is for browser. Therefore, mobile application has gained a significant part in engaging brands with customers. The new trend is called, Mobile 3.0, which is the age of service through mobile phones. Unique capabilities of smartphones are used to develop new and satisfying services for users such as locating locations, analyzing users’ behaviors and etc. This is why the use of smartphone has gained more roles in purchasing when comparing to the traditional way. As we can see, mobile application is a continuously growing trend in technology. And from that reason, organizations and entrepreneurs have to adjust their business in accordance to this change of customer behavior.

Mr. Nipon Saengteerapanich, the Managing Director of Digital Groove Co. Ltd., has given a view on marketing through mobile application that mobile applications can give better customer experience than the responsive website. Therefore, creating a mobile application is an excellent marketing strategy in building customer experience which needed a design in using (Design Customer Experience). Moreover, a good mobile application needs a clear objective, target group and correct categorization O2O (Online to Offline) marketing which is a method to leverage income and purchase probability at the store by merging offline and online channels together was created because nowadays, the new generation would do “ROPO” (Research online Purchase offline) or a behavior which customers do research online before actually buying at the store offline. Another interesting strategy is to build Omni Channel marketing. It creates a seamless shopping experience for customers by using every channel owned by the business. In-destination Experience is another point to consider in creating an application. It uses a unique capability of smartphone which is locating locations of the users, allowing the application to provide useful information regarding their locations through the help of iBeacon and GPS technology.

Mr. Wetsuthee Laotrakul from SHOPPENING MOBILE APP CREATOR shared his experience in creating mobile applications. The main focus is to make the application a necessity for users and the creator has to answer these 3 questions; who uses the application, what users would do in the application from the start to the end, and how the application help improve the service, boost the purchase, or solve customers’ problems. They also recommended on how to add the engagement with customers by sending notifications, a key method in engaging, in form of Broadcast to all user, Narrowcast to only targeted users, or 1:1 cast message to individual users. They moved on to the use of Live Chat in helping Customer Service and boosting the purchase. Rich Message was also mentioned. It includes photos, videos, maps, and etc. that are sent to customers in supporting the sale. Next, Ms. Thararat Diloksawasdikul, added example on using Live Chat for Customer Service and boosting the purchase. Rich Messages which are photos, videos, maps, and etc. sent to customers were also mentioned as a tool help supporting the sale. She also recommended the use of Location feature on mobile application. It helps business provide useful information related to the location or suggest itinerary leading to the store through mobile application. Another interesting use of Location feature is to show privileged promotion near the users through Based App Shortcut (an icon on Lock screen appearing when getting near the store.) And don’t forget to do Mobile Loyalty which are features that promote the uses of privileged promotions of the customers or Mobile Campaigns such as M-coupon and M-stamp card. A successful mobile application has to include 1) Digestibility ; having Quick Start Guide to assist users 2) Clarity in the concept and contents 3) Familiarity in usage ; testing the application through various techniques such as Preview. After the process of creating the application was completed, to promote and assess the application are also important. ASO (App Store Optimization) must be taken part to promote the application on Google play and App Store. From her experience, buying Google AdWords or Facebook Ads are also interesting methods. But do not forget the benefits of media the business has already owned such as poster at the store, banner on the website, discount campaign or email marketing. And lastly, creators need to collect usage statistics through tools such as Google Analytic.

Mr. Wetsuthee also added that apart from focusing on creating the application, creator also needs to make trial and error during the making. SHOPPENING.com is a Mobile App Creator that is ready to serve customers with strategies in making mobile application and understands variety of businesses. Professional application creator of SHOPPENING provides customers with easy-to-use functions, numbers of features to choose, and tools to promote such as Push Notification and Live Chat and usage statistics measure. Customers can also preview their application through SHOPPENING application before opening for service. SMEs can use standard features of SHOPPENING and can greatly benefit their business, while bigger enterprises can choose to customize features or connect to other channels to answer their specific needs.

To finish off the event, Mr. Songphol Yingsuwanchot from Digital Groove Co. Ltd., presented three interesting successful mobile campaigns from Cannes Lions – 2013 Info (Smart public affairs :TXTBKS) , 2014 integrated (NIVEA’s protection) and 2015 interactive (Google’s cardboard). He also gave three tricks for successful mobile campaigns which are FEEL, NEW, and NEXT. 1) FEEL is that the users would only remember the way they feel towards the application (Single Experience,) 2) NEW Technology has to be considered whether it is suitable for the business and the brand, and how we present it, and 3) NEXT is to keep developing the application of current version for the continuity and interestingness and to be able to answer new needs of the new generation. And do not forget to promote the applications in order to keep the application alive as the number of applications on App Store is increasing every day.

SHOPPENING: Mobile App Creator is a tool for creating fully equipped mobile applications. Containing numbers of interesting features, SHOPPENING is easy to use and ready to serve customers with strategies in making mobile application and understands variety of businesses. It also has tool to help business reach to customers such as Push Notification and Live chat, and tool to measure usage statistics. SHOPPENING is more than ready to support your business with professional Mobile specialists who can help your businesses by giving advices and helping planning your marketing strategies.